The Oyo State Government, on Sunday, began the monitoring of beneficiaries of its N500m Small and Medium Scale Enterprise Loan Support under the Sustainable Action for Economic Recovery initiative.
The state’s Commissioner for Budget and Economic Planning, Musibau Babatunde, who also doubles as the chairman of the SAfER SMEs sub-committee, led members of the sub-committee on a monitoring and evaluation visit to participating microfinance banks and some beneficiaries of the loan in Ibadan and Ogbomoso zones of the state.
Babatunde said under the loan scheme, N500m was disbursed to partnering microfinance banks across the seven zones of the state “to support and boost SME, which is the baseline for economic activities in the state and to bring succour to the residents during this economic hardship.
He said, “SAfER, as introduced by Governor Seyi Makinde, has proved to be a master stroke towards helping individuals and households in the state become stronger financially. The Federal Government removed the subsidy for gasoline products and also unified the exchange rate, which led to the devaluation of the naira. These two policy shocks affected the general price level, as inflation shot up and the exchange rate of the naira to the major currencies in the world depreciated to a very large extent.
“The interest rate was increased to stabilise inflation and as a result of that, an economic crisis ensued and it has affected the people of the state, especially business owners. Makinde, in his wisdom, felt that there was a need to make a conscious attempt to help and enhance the activities of small and micro enterprises in the state. This was how the SME Pillar under the SAfER programme came about.”
Babatunde said the monitoring visit was to enable the committee to assess the level of operations of the banks and their compliance with the operational framework guiding the disbursements of loans to the beneficiaries since the state government had disbursed the loans in three tranches to the participating banks.
Meanwhile, some of the beneficiaries commended the governor for his problem-solving approach through the loan support, which, according to them; has brought about a positive turnaround in their businesses.
